'Mukti': How Ahilya Bamroo Went from Instagram to Hindi Films to Becoming a PlayStation Video Game Protagonist

In Auroville, where daily life is far removed from the glossy sheen of the film industry’s, Ahilya Bamroo has learnt to live with one foot inside the noise of show business and the other firmly outside it. At 26, she is still a relative newcomer, but her trajectory already feels unusual. In the span of a few years she has gone from making playful Instagram skits and performing in devised theatre to starring opposite Abhishek Bachchan in Shoojit Sircar’s I Want To Talk and headlining Mukti, one of India’s first PlayStation-backed video games.

“It feels bizarre sometimes,” she admits. “I still think of myself as this random girl from Auroville who makes videos. Then suddenly I’m in front of Shoojit Sircar and on set with Abhishek Bachchan. It’s not the sort of thing you grow up expecting to happen,” Bamroo confesses.

That sense of improbability runs through Bamroo’s story. Her entry into cinema, like so much else in her life, happened by accident. During the pandemic, while she was posting comedic sketches online and working in the theatre, she received a direct message on Instagram from someone casting a Netflix show. At first, she thought it was a prank. “I genuinely couldn’t believe it. It was literally, ‘Would you audition for this project?’ I remember thinking, ‘This has to be fake.’”

It wasn’t. Within weeks, she was flown to another country. That project ultimately got shelved but it did open doors for the young actor to be discovered by Shoojit Sircar.

When asked about working opposite Abhishek Bachchan, she laughs. “It was surreal. He’s someone you’ve grown up watching on screen, right? But he was incredibly generous. He had this ease with everyone, and I think that’s what made me relax too.” Sircar, too, left an imprint. His non-controlling directorial style, she says, gave her space to discover instincts she didn’t know she had. “He never tells you exactly what to do. He just creates a mood and somehow you land where you need to. That freedom was eye-opening.”

Abhishek Bachchan and Ahilya Bamroo in a still from 'I Want to Talk'

Bamroo’s facility with language has already become part of her appeal. Raised in a multilingual household, she grew up switching between French and English, and was eventually asked to choose her mother tongue from either Bengali or Marathi, "I liked my classmates in Bangla class, so I chose that over Marathi," she says with a laugh. Hindi, Tamil and other languages were part of her environment in Auroville. This instinctive ear has meant that accents come naturally to her. “People ask me, how do you manage different accents? But I don’t think about it technically. It’s more about rhythm. Every language has its own music.”

It is a skill that will be tested in her upcoming Telugu debut, which she is currently preparing for. “It’s daunting, yes, but also thrilling. I can't tell you much but I'm playing the lead in a Telugu film and I'm currently learning the language to be able to do it well.”

Unlike many young actors who migrate to Mumbai in search of opportunity, Bamroo remains based in Auroville. The distance, she insists, is protective. “Auroville has always been home. It’s not a place that cares about glamour or industry politics. You’re not defined by what film you’re doing or who you’re with. You’re defined by whether you’re present, whether you’re engaged with the community. That keeps me sane.”

The contrast between the experimental ethos of Auroville and the commercial mechanisms of Bollywood could not be sharper. Yet Bamroo thrives on the tension. She describes herself as “not really belonging to either world, but moving between them.”

That in-betweenness is perhaps most visible in Mukti, the video game in which she plays the lead. Produced by India’s Underdogs Studio and backed by Sony’s India Hero Project, Mukti is part first-person narrative adventure, part live-action cinematic sequence. Players must navigate the corridors of an Indian museum, guided by Bamroo’s character, piecing together clues to unlock the story.

For the actor, the project opened an entirely new grammar of performance. "The live-action part is similar to acting in a film, but the immersive nature of the medium makes it so much more interesting to navigate," she says.

When asked about the overlap between cinema and gaming she says, “I think they’re becoming the same thing. Storytelling is expanding. For me, Mukti was a sign of where things are headed. In India, we often separate mediums. But audiences don’t care. They just want to feel something. So if that feeling comes through a PlayStation game or a film, what’s the difference?”

For Bamroo, Mukti represents more than just a personal milestone; it hints at the possibilities of transmedia storytelling in India, where intellectual property can extend across mediums and reach new audiences. “I think about it as the new stage,” she says. And perhaps that refusal to over-define or fit into airtight compartments is her real strength: an openness to the unexpected DM, the unlikely project, the hybrid medium — a willingness to play, wherever the stage may be.